Knee Injury Revisited

It's been a week since I took the dive. I'm healing pretty nicely. I swapped to bandaids to prevent chafing and irritation from my jeans, but the cuts are otherwise shrinking in diameter. The bruises got worse over the past week, but are now fading.

I ran 20 miles today.

I'm in severe pain after the fact, but the run itself was awesome. I felt great, strong, motivated. I got faster as I went even. Miles 6-13 were beautiful. I ran along with another marathoner along the 2-3 mile stretch through Bedford. They don't plow the Bikeway in Bedford, by the way. Heads up. Lexington and Arlington plow, but it still remains relatively icy since they don't use sand or salt. Bedford however just waits for snow to melt. Rough terrain once it ices over all lumpy too. It was encouraging not to be the only runner along that stretch however. And man, not only was she faster, but she just glided without hesitation over some icy-lumpy stretches. I stick to my theory that running on ice is all about confidence, not friction. I think when people hesitate and stiffen up when walking/jogging on ice, it changes their stride and it automatically unbalances them. It's almost better if you didn't know you were running on ice.

Anyway, great run. Sore knees - both. Long, long, long nap.

But I'm photographing my injuries again because of the weird stripes that developed on my left knee during the course of the run today. Check out the striations:



The right knee coming along and one of the bruises is yellowing:

22 Mile - Distance Peak Done!

So this was just a weekend of running excitement. As I've complained endless about, I was sick last week and totally freaked that I wasn't going to be able to run well with the race upcoming. Well, the medicine seems to have worked great and all that rest left me feeling AMAZING this weekend.

Anyway, this weekend was my run. I started out saying that I'd only run 20 miles, but I was feeling so awesome that I decided to complete the full 22 miles. It was great! The weather was perfect, which I attribute the ease of the run to. It was in the low-60s with a strong wind, sunny, but since I started early, I got some decent shade from the trees.

I'm excited! I felt sooooo good coming out of it. I noticed some chafing that my chafeguard didn't entirely take care of, and my knees are a little sore today, but all in all, I'm feeling great. We even went out and walked around a bunch for the rest of the day.

It's probably the first time I've actually felt confident about the marathon. I think its going to be okay.

Runs with Respiratory Infection

So by the title of this, you might have realized I was sick this week and I'm fighting to stick to some kind of training schedule during this disaster. The big problem is that it hasn't been a head cold. It's in the chest. I have a cough that puts chain smokers to shame and a rattle in my chest when I take anything but shallow breaths. I've been this way since Tuesday morning.

Tuesday morning I awoke coughing. A lot. Nothing else was wrong with me. Just phlegm deep down that no amount of coughing would hack up. I otherwise felt okay. So I did a 4 mile run at lunch time to get in some serious heat training. It was 93, sunny, high noon. I went for a jog. A painful jog. By mid-afternoon my cough was not only worse but I was starting to feel it overall. A little dizzy, achy. So I go home and get some rest, foregoing any more working out.

I wake up at 4am on Wednesday morning, hacking up a storm unable to sleep for a good half hour because no matter what I did I just couldn't stop coughing. I skipped my Wednesday morning workout. I went to work, but feeling hellish and getting a sore throat. I ended up going home early and taking Thursday off when it turned into a head cold too.

I went to work on Friday, and started to feel better as the day progressed. I went to pilates in the evening, followed by some upper body work. I was feeling weaker than usual and spent the entire time trying not to cough all over the equipment. I went to bed early on on Friday night, since I wanted to do the 20 miler today.

Well, I slept in a little - although I did wake up at 4am again with coughing. I ate some yogurt and went back to sleep. I didn't get out of the house and running until 11am. I started at Alewife for a 20 mile out and back along the bikeway. I was doing okay with only minor coughing up until the 10 mile point. I had only gone through 1 1/2 bottles. At the midway, I stopped to drink and eat a couple of clif bloks. That's when I fell into a 5 minute coughing fit. It was horrible. Trying to breath, cough, not pee because when I cough it made me want to pee. A biker stopped to see if I was okay, see if I was dizzy and maybe wanted to call for someone. I said I was going to be alright, and took a cough drop. I got about 2 miles back, and slowed because the coughing really never went away after that. It was costing me a lot of energy. I don't feel like I was getting enough oxygen since I kept having to take really shallow breathes. The coughing fits took a lot out of me too. I walk 1 mile. I then picked back up for another mile. In Lexington, I was ready to call it quits, but the bus was a while off, and I ended up running again. I made it the next mile, and the next. I paused at one point to deal with a coughing fit. I made it the last mile where I reached Arlington Heights. So I made it 16 miles. I caught a bus and went home.

What a mess. My body itself felt okay. My legs were good. It was perfect weather: partially sunny in the mid-60s. I wore the Nike dri-fit stability socks, which made my big toe sore. I need to stick to the super-thick bottomed socks. Lesson learned. I didn't use any mole skin this week. Only the asics chafeguard. No problems! No sore baby toes! Physically, not sore, my legs were great, my upper body wasn't even achy. So I know that I could have done more, if only I could have been breathing properly. Frustrating.

At this point, I want to try again tomorrow. Give myself some rest. I don't want to take cough medicine, but I'm a little tempted. Although if it increases heartrate or blood pressure, that wouldn't be good. I'll have to double check on that. If I could just alleviate the coughing for a 4 hours though, I'd be golden. I really want to get my 20-miler in this weekend.

Hell yeah.

16.4 miles straight, with a 0.6 warm-up run beforehand. Total mileage today: 17.0 miles. Time 2:55:45 - average 10:41min/mile - those last two miles I was having a hard time with my knees. I felt a little slower today than usual, which obviously played out in my average mileage. I gained 10 sec per mile. I woke up this morning sore, especially in the upper body, from last night's workout. I only had about a 12 hour recovery period.

Around mile 3-4, a group of runners very slowly came upon me chatting, so I stepped off to the side to let them past, since the talking was kind of distracting. So I ended up running behind them, letting them pace me for a while. But really close behind them. When they pulled off in Lexington, one of the guys ran after me since I kept going. Apparently they thought I was someone named Kate who they wanted to verify I was running home. I apologized and explain that I wasn't part of their group. He looked confused but headed off. They were super pleasant people - one was wearing a chi running t-shirt. I was a little tempted to ask which group they were, but hey, I wasn't about to turn back.

I filled up with G2 (the red kind) in my water bottles today. I have to admit that I really appreciated the extra sugars and electrolytes that I wasn't getting in water. It really helped push me through today. I think that in the future, I may have to buy a couple more water bottles for the belt, or invest in a 4-pack fuel belt. While I anticipate the necessity for training, it's not something I'll wear during the marathon itself, given water/gatorade station every few miles. I think that my two 6 oz bottles were definitely not enough today though. I even drank the rest of the Gatorade bottle before the run, and had fueled up on water the night before.

By the time I ended the run, my legs and knees were just screaming at me. I felt like I just got off a horse or something - walking funny. But I headed into Whole Foods, where there were lots of free samples of oranges, watermelon and other yummy stuff. That tackled the starvation re-fueling factor. I ended up grabbing a Naked Protein shake and a Builders Bar. Ha, 50g protein total. Maybe a little more than I needed. But I just entered my run into the training log on Mapmyrun.com and it says that I burned over 1800 calories. So I figure my 800 calories were probably not so bad in the grand scheme of things. I seriously needed refueling.

Anyway, I'll laying down now, giving my legs a much needed rest after walking home. I might take a little nap before I do something more productive than running today. I'm just really quite blissfully happy. While I couldn't have made it those extra 9 miles to a marathon after today's run, I still have 1-1.5 months to get there. I just need to pick up my mid-week runs. I can't keep getting distracted by lifting and sickness.

I find my peace and solitude

I run because it's my passion. Every time I walk out the door, I know why I'm going where I'm going and I'm already focused on that special place where I find my peace and solitude. - Sasha Azevedo

Today was amazing. I can't begin to describe how good I felt. To the point where near the end, I was about in tears. Just because I had this total feeling of overwhelming happiness. Running completely changed my life. The very idea that I'm training for a marathon right now. That my body has the capacity, the strength, energy and has been trained to the point where it will soon cover more miles that the majority of the human population dreams of is just beyond where my imagination, my goals and dreams ever would have gone a few years ago.

I was not athletic growing up. I played sports in high school, but it was really on a whim and total desperation for players that first season. And to be honest, I wasn't even particularly good at it. I like it, I felt great, but innate talent with a stick and ball, I did not have. College saw any athletic potential I might have harbored go straight out the window. I had fleeting love affairs with trying to jog a mile from time to time, but I simply couldn't acquire the passion.

Nothing near to the passion I have for running now. I simply feel complete when I'm running. Safe, secure, confident, focused, determined. The rhythmic pace, the breeze created as I cut through the still air, the steady breaths I take. It's almost meditative, hypnotizing. I really never want to stop once I get started.

Today was one of those perfect days. If my hip flexors hadn't been giving me a hard time, I would have gone for another loop around the pond. You see, this week I headed out to Bedford as usual, ran the bikeway, but I took a turn when I hit Arlington. I veered out into Belmont, then down into Cambridge that way to bump into Fresh Pond directly for another loop. My intention had been a 13 miler, but I added over an extra mile with the pond loop, and stopped at Whole Foods for a piece of fruit (and quinoa, since its cheaper there than anywhere else). My pace was a steady 10:30 throughout the entire run. Not competitive, of course, but I like to keep my distance run easy as I built up. Save the tempo or speed runs for under 10 miles.

I'm already excited to get out again tomorrow. The weather was in the upper 30s, early 40s today. Perfect running weather in my opinion. I decided on my way home today, that I think that no matter what's happening in my life, as long as I can run, I will be happy. I don't ever want to live a life without running again. It filled a hole in my soul that I didn't even know was there.